Frenchmans Creek - Daphne du Maurier

"Yes," said Dona, as though she had not heard him. "Yes, it would be Rockingham. Harry is too lazy to come without persuasion."

William stood motionless before her, the candle in his hand.

"What did you tell Sir Harry?" she asked. "How did you keep him from my room?"

For the first time a trace of a smile appeared on William's face, and he looked at his mistress with understanding.

"Sir Harry would not have passed into your room, my lady," he said, "he must have slain me first. I explained to the gentlemen, as soon as they had dismounted, that you had been in bed for several days with a high fever, that at last you were obtaining some measure of sleep, and that it would be extremely prejudicial to your health if Sir Harry as much as ventured into the room. Absolute quiet was essential."

"And he accepted your story?"

"Like a lamb, my lady. He swore a trifle at first, and cursed me for not having sent for him, but I explained that it was your ladyship's strict orders that he was not to be told. And then Miss Henrietta and Master James came running to meet Sir Harry, telling the same tale, that your ladyship was poorly and confined to your bed, and Prue of course came too, with a woebegone face, that your ladyship would not even admit her to tend upon you. So after having played with the children, and supped, and taken a turn around the gardens, my lady, Sir Harry and Lord Rockingham retired. Sir Harry is in the blue room, my lady."

Dona smiled at him, and put her hand on his arm.

"Faithful one," she said, "and then you did not sleep yourself for thinking of the morning that was to come. And supposing I had not returned?"

"No doubt I would have arrived at some decision, my lady, although the problem was a little hard."

"And my lord Rockingham? What did he say to all this?"

"His lordship appeared disappointed, my lady, that you were not down to receive them, but he said very little. It seemed to interest him when Prue told Sir Harry that no one was looking after you but myself. I observed that his lordship looked upon me with some curiosity, my lady, and if I might venture to say so, with new eyes."

"He would, William, Lord Rockingham has that sort of mind. He is a person to watch, for he has a long nose like a terrier dog."

"Yes, my lady."

"It is strange, William, what fatality lies in the making of plans. I thought to breakfast with your master in the creek, and to fish with him, and to swim, and to cook our supper under the stars again as we did last night, and now all that is finished and done with."

"But not for long, my lady."

"That we cannot tell. At all costs word must be sent to La Mouette, and she must leave the creek with the next tide."

"It would be more prudent to wait until night-fall, my lady."

"Your master will decide of course. Ah, William."

"My lady?"

But she shook her head, shrugging her shoulders, telling him with her eyes the things that she could never say in speech, and suddenly he bent down, patting her shoulder as though she were Henrietta, his funny button mouth twisted.

"I know, my lady," he said, "but it will come all right. You will be together again," and then because of the anticlimax of home-coming, because she was tired, because he patted her shoulder in his kind ridiculous way, she felt the tears running down her cheeks, and she could not stop them. "Forgive me, William," she said.

"My lady."

"So foolish, so unutterably foolish and weak. It is something to do with having been so happy."

"I know, my lady."

"Because we were happy, William. And there was the sun, and the wind, and the sea, and - loveliness such as has never been."

"I can imagine it, my lady."

"It does not happen often, does it?"

"Once in a million years, my lady."

"Therefore I will shed no more tears, like a spoilt child. For whatever happens we have had what we have had. No one can take that from us. And I have been alive, who was never alive before. Now, William, I shall go to my room, and undress, and get into bed. And later in the morning you shall call me, with my breakfast, and when I am sufficiently prepared for the ordeal, I will see Sir Harry, and find out how long he intends to stay."

"Very good, my lady."

"And somehow, in some way, word must be sent to your master in the creek."

"Yes, my lady."

And so, with the daylight coming through the chinks in the shutters, they left the room, and Dona, her shoes in her hands and her cloak about her shoulders, crept up the stairway she had descended some five days earlier, and it seemed to her that a year and a life-time had passed since then. She listened for a moment outside Harry's room, and yes, there were the familiar snuffling snores of Duke and Duchess, the spaniels, and the heavy slow breathing of Harry himself. Those things, she thought, were part of the pattern that irritated me once, that drove me to absurdities, and now they no longer have any power to touch me, for they are not of my world now, I have escaped.

She went to her own room, and closed the door. It smelt cool and sweet, for the window was open on to the garden, and William had put lilies-of-the-valley beside her bed. She pulled aside the curtains and undressed, and lay down with her hands over her eyes, and now, she thought, now he is waking beside the creek, putting out his hand for me beside him and finding me gone, and then he remembers and smiles, and stretches, and yawns, and watches the sun come up over the trees. And later he will get up and sniff the day, as I have seen him do, whistling under his breath, scratching his left ear, and then walk down to the creek and swim. He will call up to the men on La Mouette, as they scrub the decks, and one of them will lower the rope ladder for him to climb, and another launch a boat to bring back the little boat and the supper things and the blankets. Then he will go to the cabin, and rub himself dry with a towel, glancing out of the port-hole on to the water as he does so, and presently, when he has dressed, Pierre Blanc will bring breakfast, and he will wait a little, but then because he will be hungry he will eat it without me. Later he will come up on deck and watch the path through the trees. She could see him fill his pipe, and lean against the poop rail, looking down into the water, and perhaps the swans would come back, and he would throw bread to them, idle, contented, filled with a warm laziness after his morning swim, thinking perhaps of the day's fishing to come, and the hot sun, and the sea. She knew how he would glance up towards her, if she came through the trees down to the creek, and how he would smile, saying nothing, never moving from the rail on the deck, throwing the bread down to the swans as though he did not see her. And what is the use, thought Dona, of going over this in my mind, for all that is finished, and done with, and will not happen again, for the ship must sail before she is discovered. And here am I, lying on my bed at Navron, and there is he, down in the creek, and we are not together any more, and this then, that I am feeling now, is the hell that comes with love, the hell and the damnation and the agony beyond all enduring, because after the beauty and the loveliness comes the sorrow and the pain. So she lay on her back, her arms across her eyes, never sleeping, and the sun came up and streamed into the room.

It was after nine o'clock that William came in with her breakfast, and he put the tray down onto the table beside her bed, and "Are you rested, my lady?" he asked. "Yes, William," she lied, breaking off a grape from the bunch he had brought her.

"The gentlemen are below breakfasting, my lady," he told her. "Sir Harry bade me enquire whether you were sufficiently recovered for him to see you."

"Yes, I shall have to see him, William."

"If I might suggest it, my lady, it would be prudent to draw the curtains a trifle, so that your face is in shadow. Sir Harry might think it peculiar that you look so well."

"Do I look well, William?"

"Suspiciously well, my lady."

"And yet my head is aching intolerably."

"From other causes, my lady."

"And I have shadows beneath my eyes, and I am exceedingly weary."

"Quite, my lady."

"I think you had better leave the room, William, before I throw something at you."

"Very good, my lady."

He went away, closing the door softly behind him, and Dona, rising, washed and then arranged her hair, and after drawing the curtains as he had suggested, she went back to her bed, and presently she heard the shrill yapping of the spaniels, and their scratching against the door, followed by a heavy footstep, and in a moment Harry was in the room, and the dogs with delighted barking hurled themselves upon her bed.

"Get down, now, will you, you little devils," he shouted. "Hi, Duke, hi, Duchess, can't you see your mistress is ill, come here, will you, you rascals," making, as was his wont, more ado than the dogs themselves, and then, sitting heavily upon the bed in place of them, he brushed away the marks of their feet with his scented handkerchief, puffing and blowing as he did so.

"God dammit, it's warm this morning," he said, "here I am sweating through my shirt already, and it's not yet ten o'clock. How are you, are you better, where did you get this confounded fever? Have you a kiss for me?" He bent over her, the smell of scent strong upon him, and his curled wig scratching her chin, while his clumsy fingers prodded her cheek. "You do not look very ill, my beautiful, even in this light, and here was I expecting to find you at death's door itself, from what the fellow told here. What sort of a servant is he, anyway? I'll dismiss him if you don't like him, you know."

"William is a treasure," she said, "the best servant I have ever had."

"Ah, well, as long as he pleases you, that's all that matters. So you've been ill, have you? You should never have left London. London always suits you. Although I admit it's been damned dull without you. Not a play worth seeing, and I nearly lost a fortune at piquet the other night. The King has a new mistress, they tell me, but I haven't seen her yet. Some actress or other. Rockingham's here, you know, and all agog to see you. God dammit, he said to me, in town, let's go down to Navron and see what Dona is up to, and here we are, and you a confounded invalid in bed."

"I am much better, Harry. It was only a passing thing."

"Well, I'm glad to hear that. As I say, you look well enough. You have a tan on you, haven't you? You're as dark as a gypsy."

"The illness must have made me yellow."

"And your eyes are larger than ever they were, dammit."

"The result of the fever, Harry."

"Queer sort of fever. Must be something to do with the climate down here. Would you like the dogs up on your bed?"

"No, I think not."

"Hi, Duke, give your mistress a kiss, and then get down. Here, Duchess, here's your mistress. Duchess has a sore patch on her back, and she's nearly scratched herself raw, look at that now, what would you do to her? I've rubbed in some pomade, but it does her no good. I've bought a new horse, by-the-way, she's down there in the stable. A chestnut, with a deuce of a temper, but she covers the ground quick enough. 'I'll give you a thousand for her,' says Rockingham, and 'Make it five thousand,' I tell him, 'and I might bite,' but he won't play. So the county's infested with pirates, is it, and robbery, rape and violence causing havoc amongst the people?"

"Where did you hear that?"

"Well, Rockingham brought back a story in town one day. Met a cousin of George Godolphin's. How is Godolphin?"